


don't leave me like this

by livinginaworldofnoise



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, M/M, Merlin is the boy next door, Merthur forever, arthur is maybe a little stupid at times, but also cuteness maybe, love him anyway, nonmagical AU, pls love me, what am I tagging anymore it's 3am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:56:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2700380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livinginaworldofnoise/pseuds/livinginaworldofnoise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>merlin is the boy next door, arthur is his best friend (among other things)</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't leave me like this

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading, you're lovely! I hope you like it even though it's totally unedited because I'm awful  
> this is an au so who even knows what the setting is or why Arthur has a little sister who is kind of me  
> Arthur and Merlin are obviously not my characters so I take no credit for them  
> leave a comment or something if you want, pce luv hope u enjoy xx

When I was 8, a boy moved in next door. Shy smile, dark blue eyes, and two years older than me. My brother, 11 at the time, was excited to have another boy his age on our street, someone to throw a frisbee and ride bikes with. I was excited, too, with the hope that my brother might let me tag along. Arthur was not yet too old to really mind that I was younger or a girl, so when he became fast friends with the new boy, Merlin, I did as well. Merlin was shy at first, playful when he felt like it and bashful when he didn't. He was sweet and honest and I liked being his friend. I never really minded being slightly set apart from them, given all the stupid, girl roles in the games we played or being the lookout for their schemes. The girls my age on our street were indoor girls, content with dresses and dolls, but I couldn't sit still long enough to feel the same. The outdoors were where the action happened, after all.

When I was 10, Arthur grew distant from me and, in turn, so did Merlin. He had always been closer to Arthur than me anyway, and now neither of them seemed to want me around. I was younger, and girlier, and they no longer needed a third wheel. I resigned myself to it, letting my mother dress me like a doll and pretending to make an effort with the other girls, all the while staring longingly out the window where my brother and the boy next door were wrestling in the grass.

A few months after I turned 12, Merlin and Arthur had a fight. I didn't know what it was about, but in an instant they were no longer speaking. I had Merlin's attention now, and I began to realize that I liked him in a slightly non-platonic way. Even at 14, he was beautiful in a way other boys couldn't manage and wouldn't try to. His face was fragile and his smile hesitant, and I realized when he laughed I never wanted him to stop. Without Arthur, he would talk to me, make me laugh, race me to creek. I never even asked what happened with Arthur, because it worked out better for me. My brother was moody all the time now, slamming doors and offering only biting words. My mother wrote it off as him "being a teenager" but I couldn't help but wonder whether it didn't have something to do with Merlin. Merlin never brought it up, though, and I didn't press.

By the time I was 13, they had made up again. This was unfortunate for me, as I felt my affection for Merlin grow every day. They were both happier, though, and again it struck me that I didn't know what they had fought about or why they had stopped speaking for half a year. Merlin still sought me out sometimes, when he was frustrated about Arthur or the world, and it made me feel special, like I was the only person he really trusted to tell. There was nothing romantic about us, but I found friendship to be just as adequate.

~~~

When I was 14, I heard a sort of crashing noise that woke me up close to three in the morning. Without stopping to consider the implications of, say, an intruder, I tiptoed down the stairs and stopped when I heard hushed whispers, voices coming from the deck outside. I paused at the screen door and peered out. Pressed up against the side of the house were two figures, shadowy and laughing softly. Intertwined. I recognized Arthur's fair hair almost immediately, but it took me a moment to work out who the other person was. Did Arthur have a girlfriend I didn't know about?

He shifted slightly, and I could see his grin even in the darkness. I'd never seen him so happy, so relaxed. Who could possibly be-

It was Merlin. Merlin and my brother were standing so close they might as well be joined together, and they-

They were kissing.

I tried to stifle a gasp, rein in my startledness, my upset, but it came out anyway, and I saw Arthur freeze and pull away, turning towards me. His lips were swollen red and he looked just as shocked to see me standing there as I'm sure I did to see him. He staggered back a step, and suddenly I could see Merlin. My Merlin. At least I had hoped he was. Bewildered, hair wild, shirt unbuttoned. When you took away his confusion, he looked sated and _happy_ , as though he'd finally found the place where he fit, the person that he fit with. Not me. My brother. Arthur, who was quick-tempered and loud, endearingly domineering and annoyingly noble, the person who had made Merlin's lips look like that. Not me. I couldn't bring myself to feel betrayed, because I knew that wouldn't even make sense, but I couldn't help but _hurt_. All this time, pining for the boy next door, and he was never even mine to pine for. He was claimed, by my own brother, and I had been kept in the dark.

Arthur had taken a few steps towards me, hand stretched out before him as though he could use it to snatch the memory of what I'd seen. "I- I-"

Unable, _unwilling_  to hear his excuses, I shook my head and retreated upstairs, trying to be quiet before I remembered that my parents were out for the night at some Broadway show. I sat on my bed, breathing hard, not even sure what was acceptable to feel. Betrayal, certainly not. Hurt, yes. Anger, only partly. Disappointment, I suppose. Shock, most definitely. I was trying to separate the hurt at being lied to from the hurt that I wasn't the one Merlin wanted, because some part of me knew that the latter was unreasonable and unnecessary.

Arthur was at my door within seconds, pale and nervous and tripping over his words. "Look, that- I mean, we- I don't- it just-"

I stared at him, uncomprehending. Arthur closed his mouth then took a deep breath, to calm himself, I suppose. I took the opportunity to say, quietly, "How long?"

His gaze snapped to mine, and he looked almost ashamed, really, which almost hurt more than the kick of rejection I was feeling. My brother couldn't even relish in what he had. Merlin, who had materialized next to him, looked like he'd just been delivered a kick to the stomach.

Arthur cleared his throat. "Over a year."

Something clicked in my brain. "When you guys made up?"

"I- uh, yeah." Arthur was still refusing to meet Merlin's gaze, seeming to find the floor more manageable to look at.

"Why did you guys fight in the first place?" I asked quietly.

"I kissed him," Merlin offered, still staring at Arthur entreatingly, perhaps now trying to elicit a reaction, "and he didn't want me to."

Arthur finally met his eyes, and I felt a twist in my stomach when I saw how pained they both looked. The pieces were starting to click. Arthur and Merlin, best friends, stopped speaking because Arthur didn't want to handle how he feels. By some divine intervention he must have come to his senses, though, and I suppose they just picked up from there. In private, though, away from prying eyes, because it is so obvious that Arthur still doesn't want to handle who he is. His gaze dropped to the floor again, and he murmured something that was at first unintelligible to me, until I realized he had said, "I'm sorry."

Merlin recoiled, his face white. "Are you apologizing," he said slowly, "to me or to her?"

"I just - thought I'd be able to do this," he whispered.

I'd been forgotten, faded into the background, and for once I didn't mind. I'd pushed the hurt back, conquered it, because they needed to see how much they needed each other.

"I can't believe you're doing this to me again," Merlin said in a low voice, a voice that spoke of defeat and despair. Arthur looked pained to hear it, but he said nothing as his best friend continued. "I let you stop speaking to me for half a year, because I thought that you had a reason to hate me, that I'd done something wrong, that I _was_  something wrong. But Christ, it has been a year, Arthur, and I thought I could handle how averse you are to who you are, to what we have. I love you more than anything, but I won't stick around to watch you hate yourself and hide me. I can't live like this, I don't want to. I am so goddamn tired of not being good enough for you."

"Merlin," my brother breathed, and his face was a mask of...heartbreak. "You've always been good enough for me - better than me, even, I just- I can't-"

"Then I can't either," said Merlin, this beautiful, shattered boy next door. He stepped back, slowly, and paused long enough to meet Arthur's eyes, which were finally looking at him. "You know, somewhere in you is a person who wants to be with me as much as I want to be with you. And that person can live with the knowledge that I won't be around to see him come out."

And he left.

Arthur didn't even turn to watch him go, he just exhaled and sunk to the floor, his back pressed up against the wall, and then looked up, finally remembering that I was there.

"You're an idiot," I wasted no time in informing him.

My brother looked a little startled, apparently not having anticipated the route I was going. He was quiet for a beat or two, then pursed his lips. "For what reason?"

"You're acting like a scared little boy. Even I can see that. Why is this so hard, if you love him?"

Arthur opened his mouth then closed it again, as though even he couldn't quite think of a reasonable answer. I'd never seen my brother so hesitant; he was normally outspoken. "I just - I don't want to be this way," he said finally.

I still didn't really understand what he meant. "What way?" I asked. "An asshole? You could probably fix that, you know, by apologizing for lying to me and by chasing after Merlin."

He looked at me as though he found my words utterly incomprehensible. "I don't want to, um, like...boys, I guess?"

I blinked at him. "Why? I mean sure, they're a bit thick, but there are some real winner male specimens, believe me, I've noticed."

Arthur's face was that of someone who wants to laugh but can't quite remember how. "You don't - you don't care, then?"

I frowned at him. "I care about you. I care about Merlin. I care that you just made quite possibly the dumbest decision of your life. But if you're asking if I care that you kiss boys instead of girls, the answer is of course not. It doesn't matter to me if you like boys, it matters if you're happy. Which you're not, by the way, which probably stems from the fact that you're a moron. Get out of my room and go find your boyfriend, I'm going to bed. Jesus Christ, you're thick."

He just looked at me, eyes pleading with me to understand. "I can't."

I leveled my gaze at him. "Then I can't talk to you right now."

~~~

When I was almost 15, I woke up one night to my brother crying. He was in his bedroom, right next door to me, and when I went into his room, he was on the phone. He looked up, met my eyes, and then dropped his gaze. "Okay, thank you. I'm coming now," he managed to say, and then put the phone down.

"Where are you going? What's going on?" I asked, alarmed. I had never seen my brother cry, even when he was a kid. He was Arthur. He didn't cry. That was too defeatist for him, apparently.

He shifted his gaze up, but it was like he couldn't even see me. "Merlin's in the hospital," he said, voice laced with quiet misery.

"Oh," I said, because for once I had no idea what to say. "With what?"

Apparently Arthur was done talking about it. "I have to go. I'm going. I need to- I don't know. See him. Or something." He got to his feet and grabbed his keys off his dresser. Recently 18, he no longer had a curfew, so one in the morning wasn't too late to drive to the hospital to see your ex-best-friend-slash-boyfriend, I guess.

"I'm coming with you," I told him.

He didn't argue.

~~~

For whatever reason, hospitals never feel like a place for healing.

They feel like a place for dying.

These are the things we were told: ICU. Car accident. Grave condition. Immediate family only.

This is what we heard: No, you can't see him, and no, we have no idea if he'll be okay.

Arthur was a wreck. We sat in the waiting room, for a long time, and even by the time it got light outside I hadn't made any progress in convincing him to sleep or eat or anything that normal, rational people would do. So I did. I took a nap, I got some coffee, I called our parents. I figured someone had to behave like a rational human being.

We talked to Merlin's parents, who didn't know anything the doctors didn't. They'd been in to see him, and from the solemnity of their expressions, I had to guess that it didn't look any better than it sounded.  
~~~

"We haven't talked in months," Arthur whispered, sometime after nine in that goddamn waiting room.

I nodded. I knew that. Could count the months even, because that was how long Merlin had gone without talking to me, either. I guess I was just too close to the situation, too painful a reminder.

Which sucked.

"I don't know what's wrong with me, I just can't - I mean I couldn't...deal with everything. But I can now. I will. Goddamn, if he would just wake up, I would do anything." Arthur didn't even seem to be talking to me, not really, but he'd never believed in God so I don't know who else it could've been. "I think about that night all the time, you know," Arthur continued, his eyes staring straight ahead, fixed on the wall opposite him. "The night he left. And sometimes I can't even believe what a coward I am, and I feel sick. I hate myself so, so much sometimes. But I don't know how to fix it."

"Arthur," I said entreatingly. "He loves you. You need to talk to him. That night, when he left, he wasn't leaving because he didn't want you anymore. He left to see if you'd chase after him. And you didn't. That ship has sailed. But if you've thought about it, if you've realized that you can't be without him, then you need to tell him that. That's the only way you can try to fix it."

Arthur still wasn't looking at me. "If he wakes up."

I took a deep breath and nodded, trying to steady my breathing. "If he wakes up."

~~~

We waited for days. Not just in the waiting room, of course, though Arthur did spend more time there than I did, and certainly more than he did at home. I convinced him to go home and shower, eventually, and sleep, somewhat, but he just kept going back to the hospital like he couldn't stay away. He probably couldn't. When you love someone that much, I guess not being able to see them when they're hurt is as bad as it gets.

Four days after Arthur first got that call, Merlin woke up. I happened to be there, with a front row seat to the expression on Arthur's face when they told us we could see him now. I didn't know it was possible to see such intense relief on someone's face, such love, such pain. My brother looked like he would split into pieces from the weight of all the emotion he was carrying. He gripped my hand, tight enough to cut off my circulation, as we followed the doctor to Merlin.

"I'll wait out here," I told Arthur when we got there, because I knew that my brother needed to talk to him. "Remember what I told you."

Arthur nodded, looking more terrified than I had ever seen him, but also more resolved.

I'd agreed to wait outside, but never not to listen. Call me a nosy bitch (or don't, actually. That's rude), but I couldn't stop myself from eavesdropping. I felt I was far too invested in this love story not to have a front row seat to the possible happy ending.

Merlin looked pale and more tired than I'd ever seen him. His hospital gown shrunk him, making him look younger and smaller than ever. He was still beautiful.

If the bandages and tubes on him scared me, they must have absolutely terrified Arthur. I couldn't imagine what he must be feeling. I'd never experienced that kind of emotional depth. Seeing it in front of me, I wasn't sure I wanted to.

"Hi," Arthur said softly, and I could see his hands shaking from where I stood in the hallway.

Merlin's face was identical to Arthur's, etched with so much love and pain I wanted to look away.

How could two people who loved each other so much cause each other this much pain?

"Hi," Merlin replied finally, voice uncertain. "How did you know I was here?"

"Your mom called me. She said she didn't know why she never saw me around anymore, but she knew I'd want to know you were-" His voice cracked. "Um, here."

"Was she right?"

Arthur's head whipped up to meet Merlin's gaze. "God, yes," he said, in a voice I could only describe as broken. "How could you think I wouldn't care?"

Merlin's face hardened. "I don't really know what to think anymore."

My brother nodded. "That's - that's fair. I have made so, so many mistakes, but I didn't have to confront my biggest one until I got that phone call. Goddammit, Merlin, the thought that you could be gone, for good? I couldn't even  _breathe_. I didn't know how to deal with this - everything - until I thought I might not have to ever again." Arthur took a deep breath in an attempt to compose himself. Merlin was watching him, face unreadable. "I wish I could tell you how sorry I am, for being such a - well, as my sister put it, moron." He choked on a laugh, and Merlin's face softened. "I can't go back and erase that night, God knows I wish I could. But I think about it everyday. What you said - about there being a person inside me who wanted to be with you? You were wrong. There's no other person, there's just me, and of course I want to be with you as much as you want to be with me. Goddammit, of course. I am that person, I just didn't know how to tell you. But I love you. I love you so much it hurts sometimes and I get scared and try to hide from it but it finds me anyway." Arthur met Merlin's eyes, finally, and didn't look away. "I love you," he whispered. "And I don't care who knows."

There were tears in Merlin's eyes now. And then Arthur leaned close, and kissed him, and I did look away for that. It was too private, too raw, for me to see.

~~~

Arthur left his side eventually, to get coffee, I think, so I could talk to Merlin briefly.

"Hey," I said, stepping into the room. "That was dramatic. I don't think I've ever seen Arthur say that many words about his feelings at one time."

Merlin laughed, softly, and there was no hiding how pleased he looked. Euphoria radiated from him like he had an actual glow. "I guess not."

"What happened?" I asked, a bit bluntly, gesturing to his hospital paraphernalia.

"Drunk driver," he said, shrugging minutely like it would hurt to exert any more effort. He raised an eyebrow. "Didn't Arthur tell you?"

"Um, are you kidding? Arthur wouldn't say anything these last few days. It was like one giant sobfest." Perhaps that didn't sound very understanding. I am understanding, really.

"He cried?" Merlin asked, his voice softer than I'd ever heard it. And Merlin literally defined soft.

I winced. "Okay, maybe I wasn't supposed to tell you that, but yeah. A lot, in fact. He's been a wreck. Wouldn't leave the goddamn waiting room all week."

Merlin looked rather like he might cry. "How's he been - you know, these past months?"

I rolled my eyes. "Am I supposed to tell you that he's been very manly and stoic, or that he installed a punching bag in our basement and he beats the shit out of it as some twisted replacement for beating up himself? Christ, he hasn't talked to me in months. That makes two of you, actually." I gave Merlin a pointed look.

He winced. "Yeah, sorry about that. You were just kind of, um, close to the situation. I didn't want to confuse your, um, loyalties, and all that."

"My _loyalties_  lie with whichever of you isn't acting like a complete imbecile, so, you, actually. Do you know how much I yelled at my brother? My God, he's thick sometimes. Good luck with that."

Merlin laughed, and it was clear he didn't mind at all. (Ugh, it was disgusting how in love they were. Well. Cute, actually. But don't tell them I said that.) "How have you been, unfortunate radio silence aside?"

I shrugged. "Fine. I mean, I'm in high school now, because you both ditched me during my freshman year. But whatever. I survived. Honors classes and all."

He wiggled his eyebrows at me. "Any boyfriends?"

I made a face. "You'll just tell my brother whatever I tell you."

He raised his hands up in innocence. "I am perfectly capable of keeping a secret."

"Okay, sure, until your stupid boyfriend gives you puppy dog eyes or makes out with you to extract said secret."

"I resent that! Despite its veracity!"

I rolled my eyes at Merlin's insistent face. "Whatever. There's a guy named Joe, we've just been, like, I don't know, talking. And stuff."

"Aw, love in the making," he cooed. "We could totally double date!"

"Absolutely not. You and your stupid boyfriend are staying far away from my love life."

"What love life?" interrupted Arthur from the doorway of the room.

"That's my cue to go," I said, already turning around. I made another face at Merlin. "Good luck keeping your mouth shut."

I breezed out of the room, figuring I could go sit in the cafeteria for a while to give the sickening couple some time to re-connect and hopefully get the PDA out of their system. I'm charitable that way.

"Wait, wait!" my brother yelled. I turned and quirked an eyebrow. "Thank you," he said sincerely, "I needed to hear what you said to me."

I shrugged, not wanting to display any too-obvious emotional reaction (I think I'm like Arthur that way). "Sure. Get along then, I think Merlin's lips are getting lonely." I smirked and turned away again, and for once I didn't feel like I was leaving something broken in my wake.

~~~

When I was 22, my brother and the boy next door got married. It was gross, of course, far too much love and affection and all that cringeworthy stuff, but...it was beautiful, of course. I was not allowed to sit and relax, oh no, because apparently a sister's work is never done. Merlin tried to solicit me as a "best woman" or something of the sort, but Arthur got there first (brother privilege and all that). I guess the upside of having no bride is that there are no bridesmaids and groomsmen, just people that you want standing up there with you. Merlin and Arthur had been grossly in love forever now, it seemed, but they waited to get married because they wanted to finish college first. I was accompanied by my college boyfriend Cole, who was even lovelier than I had found Merlin, and more matched to my sharp edges. Time would tell if it would work out, but in the meantime, I loved him.

Love was, apparently, a pretty good story.


End file.
